During the day several more half-breeds arrived with their wives and families, and in the evening two Shushwap Indians made their appearance, and set to work to spear white-fish by torchlight. The few they obtained they gladly sold us for a little ammunition and tobacco. These were the first specimens of their tribe which we had seen. They were lean and wiry men, of middle stature, and altogether of smaller make than the Indians we had met before; their features were also smaller, and more finely cut, while the expression of their faces was softer and equally intelligent. They were clothed merely in a shirt and marmot robe, their legs and feet being naked, and their long black hair the only covering to their heads. These Shushwaps of the Rocky Mountains inhabit the country in the neighbourhood of Jasper House, and as far as Tête Jaune Cache on the western slope. They are a branch of the great Shushwap nation, who dwell near the Shushwap Lake and grand fork of the Thompson River in British Columbia. Separated from the main body of their tribe by 300 or 400 miles of almost impenetrable forest, they hold but little communication with them. Occasionally a Rocky Mountain Shushwap makes the long and difficult journey to Kamloops on the Thompson, to seek a wife. Of those we met, only one had ever seen this place. This was an old woman of Tête Jaune Cache, a native of Kamloops, who had married a Shushwap of the mountains, and she had never re-visited the home of her youth.

When first discovered by the pioneers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the only clothing used by this singular people was a small robe of the skin of the mountain marmot. They wandered barefoot amongst the sharp rocks, and amidst the snow and bitter cold of the fierce northern winter. When camping for the night they are in the habit of choosing the most open spot, instead of seeking the protection of the woods. In the middle of this they make only a small fire, and lie in the snow, with their feet towards it, like the spokes of a wheel, each individual alone, wrapped in a marmot robe, the wife apart from her husband, the child from its mother. They live by hunting the bighorns, mountain goats, and marmots; and numbers who go out every year never return. Like the chamois hunters of the Alps, some are found dashed to pieces at the foot of the almost inaccessible heights to which they follow their game; of others no trace is found. The Shushwaps of Jasper House formerly numbered about thirty families, but are now reduced to as many individuals. Removed by immense distances from all other Indians, they are peaceable and honest, ignorant of wickedness and war. Whether they have any religion or not, we could not ascertain; but they enclose the graves of their dead with scrupulous care, by light palings of wood, cut with considerable neatness, with their only tools—a small axe and knife. They possess neither horses nor dogs, carrying all their property on their backs when moving from place to place; and when remaining in one spot for any length of time, they erect rude slants of bark or matting for shelter, for they have neither tents nor houses. As game decreases the race will, doubtless, gradually die out still more rapidly, and they are already fast disappearing from this cause, and the accidents of the chase.

The half-breeds who had arrived at our camp were all short of provisions, and eagerly offered moose-skins and various articles in exchange for small quantities of pemmican and flour. We were very anxious to husband our supplies, but could not see them want, or refrain from asking them to share our meals.

On the 3rd of July Mr. Macaulay arrived, and set up his tent close to our lodge. His hunt had not been a very successful one, and as he had only a few days’ supply of bighorn mutton, would be compelled to set out again almost immediately. He was therefore quite unable to replenish our stock, but invited us to sup on some delicious trout which he had caught in one of the mountain lakes the day before. He informed us that a winter rarely passed now without a great scarcity of provisions at Jasper House, and their being driven to horse-flesh as a last resource. From him we also heard another anecdote of our old enemy, the wolverine. When returning to the Fort from a hunting expedition at the beginning of the previous winter, Mr. Macaulay was surprised to find that all the windows of the building, which are of parchment, were gone. He fancied that some one had broken in to rob the place. On entering he searched about, yet found nothing; but hearing a noise in the room overhead, he went up, and there discovered a wolverine, which was chased and killed. He had lived on the parchment windows in default of more usual food, and had been so satisfied with his diet, that his natural curiosity had slept, and strangely enough, he had not investigated the packages of goods which lay about.

We learnt from Mr. Macaulay that the three miners, of whom we had heard at Edmonton as having gone to prospect the sources of the North Saskatchewan, and whose notice we had seen on the tree when we first struck the Athabasca, had already passed on their way across the mountains to Cariboo. At Mr. Macaulay’s suggestion, we engaged an old Iroquois half-breed to accompany us as far as Tête Jaune Cache. As we had no money, he was to receive one of our pack-horses in payment. We tried to persuade him to go forward to the end; but he did not know anything of the country beyond The Cache, and would not venture further.[10]

At this point Mr. O’B.’s provisions came to an end. His 40lbs. of pemmican, which he was very positive would last him until the end of the journey, had rapidly disappeared before his vigorous appetite. Mr. Macaulay kindly furnished him with a little tea and tobacco, and we supplied the necessary pemmican, with many exhortations to him to use it carefully, for a prospect of starvation was discernible even now.

On the 4th of July, we started again, under the guidance of the Iroquois, and were accompanied by Mr. Macaulay and two of his men to the point where we were to cross the Athabasca. The path lay through water, often up to the horses’ girths, or along the steep sides of the narrowing valley, and it was already dusk when we reached our destination. We camped for the night by the river’s edge, at a place where was plenty of dry timber, some of which had been already cut down for a raft by the Canadian emigrants. On one of the trees the names of those of whom we had heard from Mr. Macaulay as being just before us, were inscribed, and a statement that they crossed on the 16th June, or nearly three weeks before.

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CROSSING THE ATHABASCA RIVER, IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.